Hello Readers! Are you still there? It has been a while. I’m happy to report that I have not abandoned this blog.

I’ve been meaning to do a blog post since September, but then I got ridiculously pregnant, and everything I was writing and drawing was a total pile of crap. Normally I am pro-crap piles, but only if it’s intentional (if you know me at all, you know how much I love a nice steaming pile of poo’).

No kidding though, I really have been busy these last few months. I have good reason for not posting a new blog entry…and yes, I do believe in the art of presenting believable excuses for not getting jack shit done.

Back in September, we went on our first “vacation” as a family, to Florida. I’d like to say that all my planning really paid off, but nothing could resolve the fact that we were traveling with a toddler.

The fun began at the airport…I made Ben carry the car seat in a special car seat carrying backpack, which I had read on some mommy blog is absolutely necessary for travel. This picture doesn’t even come close to accurately depicting how awkwardly huge it was (I was too lazy to redraw it). It looked like the backpack was wearing him. Ben’s whole body was lurching forward, and he never stopped sweating.

I highly recommend it!

Liam nursed the entire plane ride there and back. He’s off the charts for his height. In the world of mommy blogs, he’d be described as “absolutely thriving,” which is great and all, but it looked like I was nursing an eleven year old.

We did not purchase a seat for Liam, so we had the joy of being crushed by his large body for the duration of the flight. He had a great time harassing fellow passengers and repeatedly opening and closing the window shade and tray table. I know the bald gentleman in front of us loved it, because he kept peeking back at us between the seats, obviously yearning to join in on the fun.

When we got to Florida, Liam decided to stop sleeping. We quickly realized that a vacation with a toddler is not really a vacation, but rather a constant reminder as to why you should never leave your house again, and instead, just live vicariously through travel magazines.

So you may be thinking, “Wow, really? You’ve been too busy to write a blog post because you went on a vacation back in September?”

NOOOOOO, obviously not. I’ve got plenty more excuses!

I also spent an ample amount of time looking for programs to watch on Hulu. I watched a documentary about the horrors of cow’s milk (bear with me)… which led to a documentary about slaughter houses (seriously, I’ll get to the validity of this excuse)…which led to my husband, our toddler (Liam), and I all going vegetarian. You might not think that’s a viable excuse, but I’m telling you, it is. Changing our diet was incredibly time consuming because I had to spend a lot of mental energy worrying about our protein intake and making sure my husband wasn’t gonna grow man boobs from eating too much tofu. Here’s a fun drawing about being vegetarian (so you don’t hate me too much for it).

I’d like to point out that the vegetarian guy drawing is not a drawing of my husband. He saw this picture and was concerned that I thought he had tofu man boobs. For the record, he does NOT have tofu man boobs.

We also survived the holidays – Thanksgiving, Halloween, Christmas, and even a family reunion, all while not eating meat, which is downright humiliating in the company of family, who looked at me like I had just tucked my skirt into my underpants. We’re talking looks of disgust, as if not only my underpants were showing, but that they were also covered in prominent poop stains.

The thing that has kept us the busiest, though, was the fact that we moved across the country to Pittsburgh, PA. Yep! We packed for a month, put all our crap into moving pods, and got the heck out of Los Angeles.

Everyone knows moving is unpleasant, so I’m not going to go into the details, but let’s just say that there were a lot of panic attacks, tears, sleepless nights, early labor signs, bed-rest, toddler tantrums, vomiting, and fights with family members about a cat who shit and peed on a bed (true story not worth reliving).

Anyway, we made it out alive.

I was 9 months pregnant when we got to Pittsburgh, and spent a good part of each day feeling sorry for myself, which was a lot of fun for the whole family. I think my husband enjoyed it the most. This pretty much sums up that last month of pregnancy:

On Friday, January 22nd, I finally popped out a baby. We named him Henry.

I would go into all the details of the labor, but honestly, I reeeeeeallly don’t want to.

Instead, I pledge to post a drawing of the moment Henry’s little head popped out of my vagina. Don’t worry, you won’t have to see anything too obscene. Maybe just a little bush…

So, I haven’t been posting lately for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that I feel like everything I’ve been writing has been one long bitchy rant, which is really not what this blog is meant to be. The second reason is that I was feeling really depressed, which was really at the root of my bitchiness. I just felt negative about everything and I was feeling self conscious about it.

I actually felt so depressed that I started to dread my future as a mother and as a human – having to go grocery shopping, drive in traffic, do laundry, shower regularly, brush my teeth, clean up Liam’s messes, wipe Liam’s butt, wipe my butt, etc.

I realized something…I wasn’t suddenly clinically depressed, I was experiencing a major case of pregnancy hormones.

Oh yeah, by the way, I’m pregnant.

I AM PREGNANT with baby NUMBER 2…BABIES Part Deux. That’s right! I am officially nursing a baby and pregnant with another. I actually wrote about getting pregnant while still nursing in a post a few months ago…not thinking it’d happen so soon. But, I guess that’s what happens when you “do it” and don’t pull out.

A friend of mine recently wrote a blog post about her severe postpartum depression, which is also connected to the hormonal changes from making babies. Reading it helped me figure out how to handle my own depression. Check it out here. When I read it, I started sobbing…and I don’t mean dainty, little, quiet tears from a lady kind of sobbing. We’re talking loud, snot running down the nose, child like sobbing – where you lose all control and can’t catch your breathe or use your words; The kind of crying you did back in first grade.

I don’t know if it was a good cry I needed, or if the hormones were leveling off as I approached the second trimester, but just as I was about to seek professional help, life seemed to get a little less gloomy. I finally felt some excitement about being pregnant again. I was able to go grocery shopping without crying over little things like Trader Joe’s running out of the medium bodied peaberry coffee beans (I’m actually still a little annoyed about that). I was able to cook without having a melt down over a pot of water taking too long to boil. Having to live out the rest of my life as a mother and wife stopped seeming like a death sentence, and started feeling like something I wanted to do again. Phew! Just in time, because I really wasn’t in the mood to have a nervous breakdown.

Things are looking up, but I’m not quite out of the first trimester yet. In fact, I’m not really supposed to go public with this news, but I’m a big blabber mouth. I’ve already told a bunch of moms I don’t know at the park, and all the little old ladies who like to say hi to Liam when we go to Trader Joe’s…aaaand a bunch of close friends…aaaand our entire family…aaaand some acquaintances…aaaand an online Mommy group…but you know what? I didn’t make a public post about it on Facebook, so that’s pretty good. Although I’m going to post this on Facebook now so I guess that would mean I’ve officially completely failed at keeping this quiet. Let’s just hope all goes according to plan and that I am in fact pregnant with a human child.

Before I go on, I need to preface the rest of this blog post by saying that I am STILL very hormonal. I fear that no matter what I do, the tone I write with now is a little on the bitchy/ungrateful/depressed side, and there is not much I can do about it. Even though things are definitely better, my emotions are still a little unpredictable. Okay, A LOT unpredictable. This morning, on the way to see my midwife, my husband was playing drums on the steering wheel, and I told him I wasn’t in the mood. Who ISN’T in the mood for air drums?! He’s really good at it too!

This pregnancy is like the first in that all food smells bad. It has been pretty rough, but compared to a lot of other moms, I’ve got it easy (that’s me trying to be positive and not feel sorry for myself, but I actually totally feel sorry for myself). I hear horror stories of pregnant ladies throwing up so much that they need to be put on medication just so they don’t starve to death. I can’t believe these same women go on to get pregnant again! If it was that bad the first time, I might have considered adoption or a surrogate, no kidding. I really don’t appreciate throwing up.

Sometimes I lose sleep when I think about the day I’ll have to clean Liam’s throw up off the floor. Every kid does it…you just have to pray it doesn’t happen on you, or worse…on a jute rug (yep, barf on a jute rug is my worst nightmare), which if you don’t know, is not meant to be washed. I once spilled an entire cup of coffee on our jute rug. I called a professional carpet cleaning company and they said the rug was fucked. I’m still considering dipping the rest of the rug in a warm coffee bath, to even things out.

I’ve dealt with massive amounts of spit up, but barf has that special smell. I might have to enforce a law that makes cleaning our kids barf off the floor part of my loving husband’s duties (I know, I’m so sweet and thoughtful). I’ll take care of pee accidents, and maybe share poop clean up duties, but he’ll have to do the barf. It’s all in his best interests! If I have to do it, I’ll barf too, and he’ll never hear the end of it.

Now that I’m pregnant for a second time, I’ve noticed a lot of differences from when I was pregnant with Liam.

Firstly, no one cares. I mean, I’m sure some people do, but I think everyone assumes since you’ve done it before, that you don’t need to talk about it. The surprises of pregnancy are not anything new, but going through it with a toddler is quite a shock. Try grocery shopping with your toddler while he tugs at your bra strap because he wants to suck your boobs dry, while you desperately search for appetizing food that all seems to smell like deli meat that has been sitting in a hot car for a month, while you simultaneously dry heave and let out a little trickle of pee right into your maternity shorts.

That’s right, I’m wearing maternity shorts. I’m only 12 weeks pregnant, and I actually look pregnant. The second time you get pregnant, your body knows exactly what to do, and your tummy immediately starts busting out of your big girl fat jeans.

I thought because I had done it before, that the outcome of giving birth and what that means for our family wouldn’t be this great unknown – I honestly thought we would know exactly what to expect. So not true. I have never had two kids. It’s just as abstract a concept as it was the first time. The fact that we will have one newborn and a toddler is difficult to imagine. Mostly because it just seems like an impossible thing to manage. I know people do it all the time, but guess what, when you ask those people what it’s like to have two kids both under the age of two, all of them say, “Don’t worry, it gets easier after a couple of years.” A couple of YEARS?! Jesus! Is that supposed to be comforting?! I was just looking for a few pointers!

Ive noticed that because I’ve been feeling like people aren’t as excited about this second baby, I have adopted the same attitude. I’m not doing it on purpose, but I guess I’m avoiding talking about it too much with people for fear they’ll say, “But, haven’t you already done this?” I suspect that this fear is directly connected to my hormones, which make me feel insecure, unloved, irrational, unappreciated, sad, fat, and very very lonely.

I’m gonna start allowing myself to be excited about this though, and stop worrying about whether or not people will think I’m being overly enthusiastic. I want to be just as excited as the first time, because this is my first time…my first time being pregnant with a second child. Allowing a pregnant lady to get excited about a pregnancy is kind of the only joy there is in being pregnant. It takes the edge off of the constipation, hemorrhoids, insomnia, dry-heaving, barfing, constant hunger, constant thirst, back aches, neck aches, sciatica, vaginal discharge, sore nipples, worry, fear, exhaustion, etc. Aaaaaand I’m sure you have a really attractive image of me in your mind right now.

Here’s what I want to know… how the F@$% are ladies having 5+ kids?! HOW?! Even just 3! That’s when everything really changes. You no longer drive your family around in a car, you quickly become a bonafide bus driver.

It’s not fun to be a bus driver. Think back to when you used to ride the bus. Remember that sour look on your bus driver’s face? Every bus driver I’ve ever met as a kid looked like an alcoholic who hadn’t slept in days. You could see their face the entire trip to and from school in that giant mirror above them.

There was one exception – Mr. Gilligan! He was my favorite bus driver of all time. He always seemed to be happy. Most people thought he was genuinely happy about being a bus driver, but I knew better. I liked to sit up front like the dork that I was, and watch his face closely in that big mirror. I observed Mr. Gilligan’s full fledged facial tick. His mouth rapidly alternated from his lips pursing into a tight wrinkled ring (something I like to refer to as “cat butthole lips”), then switching back to a wide, closed-mouth grin. He switched back and forth between those two expressions a hundred times a minute. I’m certain it was due to transporting one too many rotten kids. Sadly, I eventually joined the rotten crowd and graduated to sitting at the back of the bus with all the other “cool” kids who skipped gym class to smoke cigarettes. Poor Mr. Gilligan.

So, that’s what’s been going on here. I’ve just been laying around being pregnant, and watching episodes of The Bachelorette, which in my skewed hormonal state of mind, is the greatest show ever made.Now that the season finale has come and gone, I need to stop pretending to be an invalid, and get back to my art.

Sometimes I wish people were more like dogs or cats. If we were more like dogs, we’d all be people pleasers who greet each other with a friendly butt sniff. If we were more like cats, we’d all be equally selfish and experience great pleasure from sticking our buttholes in each other’s faces. Either way, our personalities would be a lot less complicated, more compatible, and having a butthole would make everyone a winner.

Unfortunately, people are all so different, and just because we all have a butthole, does not mean we all love ass play. This makes finding a mate quite challenging. I’ve wasted many years with the wrong guys, and reading self help books about love. Of course, I had to experience the duds in order to appreciate and discover who and what would work for me in the long term. I just wish I had thought to go to the library self help section instead of dropping hundreds of dollars at Barnes and Noble on titles like Why Men Love Bitches and How To Be An Adult In a Relationship.

It turns out I needed to find someone who had similar interests and a similar outlook on life. Maybe that’s not a necessity for everyone, but I can’t be in a relationship with someone who doesn’t agree with me most of the time. I hate to admit this, but I was the person in high school who lost their shit in debate class, and then spent my early twenties in coffee shops, arguing with regulars about politics. I think there’s something fundamentally wrong with a person if they disagree with me. I’ve managed to tone it down over the years, when I realized I was annoying everyone, including myself. Rather than getting angry, I just respond with mild shock and outrage. Maaaybe not my best quality, but unfortunately, like Larry David, I pride myself on my obnoxious character traits.

During my years of shitty relationships and self help, I came across a book called The Five Love Languages. It’s written by some guy named Gary and I’m pretty sure he believes in Jesus. I’m not a religious person, but I’ve had my fair share of exposure to the Christian faith, so any mention of God in this book didn’t really bother me. I say if you want to be a good Christian, great, just don’t make me accept Jesus into my heart.

Actually, I already did accept Jesus into my heart…when I was about 9 years old, because my mom’s super Christian boyfriend at the time told me that if I did, the angels would rejoice in heaven, in my honor. So I whole heartedly accepted! Who doesn’t want that kind of validation?!

After that, I was extraordinarily stressed out because my dad wouldn’t accept Jesus into his heart. I was like, “Um, dad! If you don’t accept Jesus into your heart, you’re gonna go to hell. HELL, like, the worst place ever.” I thought I had a very convincing argument, but he didn’t seem swayed.

Luckily, my mom broke up with the Christian guy, I didn’t have to go to children’s church anymore, and I could stop worrying about my dad’s ill-fated soul.

Anyway, back to my original point about the 5 languages of love…it’s a pretty insightful book. The idea is that we all show our love to people in 5 different ways, as is implied by the title. Typically, the way in which we show love is also the way in which we feel loved by others. For example, I have two love languages – acts of service and physical touch. I like to give and receive, but if I’m completely honest, I mostly like to receive.

With acts of service, I like when my husband does menial tasks for me, such as fetching a glass of water or making me a delicious and nutritious meal. I can literally be moved to tears of joy when he takes apart the toilet and scrubs every nook and cranny without my asking him! It happens about once a year, but it is truly a delight. Sometimes I go too far, for example, when I ask him to tuck in the sheets on my side of the bed, when he’s already under the covers on his side. He knows when to say no, though, because he has a backbone, and that’s why I love him.

As for physical touch, well I am a glutenous, bottomless pit for any kind of non sexual (although that’s nice too) physical touch, and it doesn’t have to be from my husband. I enjoy anything from a hefty foot rub to a body oil rub down that lasts for hours. If a stranger on the street offered to give me a shoulder massage, I would accept. If a friend or family member gives me a brief, loving squeeze on the shoulder, I will bow my head in ecstasy in hopes that it will turn into a lengthy massage. I’m a physical touch WHORE.

According to this book, if two people are struggling to feel loved in a relationship, they most likely have contrasting love languages. In theory, once you’re aware of someone’s love language, you can show them love in a way that they appreciate, and vice versa.

It’s a nice idea, but basically it doesn’t fucking matter. The relationship is either going to work, or it’s going to be too much work, and ultimately end, depending on each person’s threshold for pain and misery. I think most of us have a hard time finding a person that doesn’t make us miserable. Like they always say, “there’s someone out there for everyone,” unless you’re an exceptionally miserable asshole, in which case the chances of lifelong happiness with one person are pretty slim.

Thank the Lord I found someone who thinks the way I do, so we don’t have a whole lot to disagree on. He’s not an asshole, and neither am I (not that I’m aware of anyway).

It just works.

As for where we stand on ass play? Ummmmmm, that’s none of your business!

“To stimulate creativity, one must develop the childlike inclination for play”

-Albert Einstein

“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”

-Pablo Picasso

For six years, I worked at a wine bar called Lou, which is where I met my husband and my best friend B (the one who just had twins). Sadly, it closed years ago.

My poor coworkers patiently endured my quarter life crisis (aka my twenties). During that time, I was dumped by my fiancé right before our wedding, I moved apartments an average of twice a year, and I suffered form a severe case of self-hatred and self-doubt. I also kind of hated waiting tables, which didn’t always make for a pleasant work attitude. I don’t like to admit that I was pretty unhappy.

The real problem was that I was an artist who didn’t produce very much art. I was unable to tap into my creativity. I feared I had no imagination and had nothing to say.

Despite my mental and emotional problems, we all really enjoyed our time working together at the wine bar. Things were out of hand most of the time. I can’t imagine what customers must have thought of us. We gave each other a nightly shoulder massage (our boss included), scavenged scraps of farm-to-table food from the kitchen (every restaurant these days is farm-to-table), sat down with the regular customers, danced, cried, argued, and took way too many smoking breaks.

One evening, at the end of my shift, I was sitting at the bar doing the close out and counting our tips, when I found myself with a serious urge to doodle something obscene. So, I utilized the only art supplies I had at the time – a tip envelope, and one of the few pens that wasn’t swiped by some thieving customer.

The first thing I drew was a naked woman roller skating, while being propelled through the air by a presumably noxious fart, with an abundance of breast milk spraying from her nipples, and a sassy turd left in her wake. I’m pretty sure the idea came from a combination of a conversation I had with my boss about making cheese from breast milk, my friend B flashing me her pubes during a girly bathroom rendezvous, and odd memories from childhood supplied directly from my subconscious.

I continued doodling every night, until it occurred to me that these weren’t just doodles. They were masterpieces. I was meant to draw boobs, bush, farts, breast milk, and poop. Is it juvenile and repulsive? Yes! Is it lady-like and feminine? Absolutely not. Is there a deeper message that I want my audience to grasp? Mmmm, I’ll just let the viewer decide.

The point is, I found a way to make art that makes me happy. I’m not constantly questioning whether it’s good or not, because it doesn’t matter. I enjoy the process.

I’m not going to act like I’m fulfilled all the time, because I’m not. It’s easy to slip into doubt, and question my self-worth as an artist. Especially since I am doing drawings that primarily consist of ladies taking a crap, and weird fat babies.

I can easily doubt my abilities as a mom too, when I’m bored out of my skull by having to hold Liam’s hands as I walk him up and down the sidewalk for the hundredth time.

Then, I surprise myself and come up with a new idea for my art, and I get to wonder where it came from…

and I notice how cute it is that when Liam practices walking, he looks like he’s drunk…and he holds my fingers so tight, they turn purple.

My wonderful friend B is in the hospital because she just gave birth to twins! I cannot believe she had two humans inside her, and now they are here – new to this world, like little aliens with wrinkly red faces.

Actually, they’re quite beautiful. B called me via Facetime and I got to see them sleeping next to each other. We haven’t visited yet because Liam (my baby) has a cold. I would hate to wipe his sick all over B’s new babies.

Of course this great birthing event calls for some crappy baby drawings. B! if you ever find time to read this (which is doubtful), I apologize for these drawings. Your babies are so much cuter than this:

This is Olga. She is seventy-six years old, and enjoys long walks in NYC, in her ankle length winter coat that she purchased at her local thrift store.

This is Boris. He also lives in NYC. He has been a cab driver for 26 years and doesn’t take shit from anybody.

Congrats to B and her family! Welcome to the world of endless diapers and breast pumping good times.

The list I’m about to share with you is very important. I recommend committing it to memory or printing it out and putting it in your wallet as a reference.

1. The Poop Room – If you are lucky enough to live in a home with more than one bathroom, then you must designate one of the bathrooms as “The Poop Room.” That means that one of the bathrooms is used exclusively for pooping, and the other bathroom remains poop free. The poop room may be used for other bathroom activities as well, so long as someone is not already in there pooping. The poop free room must never, under any circumstances, be used for pooping. That is, unless, two people have to poop at the same time. That is the only exception.

Some people might think that the reason for this is to protect guests and family members from offensive smells. The real reason is so that the person pooping may poop in peace, without worrying about grandma or someone’s boyfriend waiting outside the door for their turn to go a measly number one, while being engulfed by your stank.

The worst part about pooping with someone waiting to use the bathroom after you, is their smiling face when you open the door, and they pretend to not be hit in the face by your poo smell. Even worse, is when they emerge from the bathroom a few moments later pretending as if they didn’t notice how god awful the stench was. Not only have they ruined your poop time, but they have also passive aggressively shamed you by pretending it never happened.

By not acknowledging the poo smell, they are saying it is too shameful to discuss. I understand refraining from announcing to everyone in the room about how smelly someone’s poo is. But at least approach the person whose pooping time you just ruined by saying, “Hey, are you okay? That really stunk bad,” or “Hey, that was pretty bad. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone,” or “Wow, that was awesomely stinky! Good job!”

2. The Aftermath – Some people say if you poo and it stinks (which it usually does), that the poo’er should light a match or spray some air freshener. This is a very common misconception. The only thing a match or air freshener will do is make the bathroom smell like poo and match, or poo and air freshener. I guess some might think that’s better than pure poo, but I beg to differ. Here is the real way to handle a stinky poo:

Step 1: Wipe in a front to back motion.

Step 2: Use a moist flushable butt wipe to remove any poop residue.

Step 2: Flush

Step 3: Make sure all waste has successfully made it down the flush hole.

Step 4: If there is still some poop remnants, a second flush is required.

Step 5: If the toilet clogs, the plunger will be required, and hopefully the plunger is located in the bathroom.

Step 6: Make sure to remove all skid marks from the toilet bowl with the little scrubby toilet bowl brush.

Step 7: Sometimes a flush following the use of the scrubby toilet bowl brush is needed, but not usually.

Step 8: Open a window or turn on the fan or utilize both options, if they are available.

Step 9: Wash your hands! If some A-hole is lurking outside the bathroom door and they know you’ve pooped, they will judge you for skipping that step. Also, you just really should wash your hands so you don’t get shit particles all over the place. Even if you think you got a clean swipe and nothing made it onto your hands…there is just no way to know for sure.

Step 10: Close the door behind you! You don’t want your poo smell wafting through the house. Sometimes people think it’s better to have an open window and an open door to really air things out, but this is actually extremely selfish and careless. It’s better to seal off the bathroom and not make everyone else in the house suffer.

Step 11: If someone tries to use the bathroom after you, the kindest thing to do is warn them of the smell they may experience. (Keep in mind, some poo smells can take up to an hour to clear)! Then, that person has the option of waiting for the smell to clear, holding their breath should they decide to brave the smell, or maybe they’re gross and they want to take a big whiff. Either way, everyone has a right to choose.

3. The Public Bathroom – If you time your day poorly (aka have coffee while out, before your morning poo), or are confronted with the sudden urge to poo (diarrhea), sometimes the only option is the dreaded public bathroom. It’s not fun, but we’ve all been there.

Don’t Panic. Calmly seek out a private bathroom (the single seater, without multiple stalls). That way if there are other people who need to use the bathroom after you, you don’t have to deal with as much embarrassment as the multiple stall bathroom, because really only the person who goes in after you will suspect you of poo’ing.

When leaving the bathroom and faced with a person waiting to go in after you, blame the smell on the person before you. Say, “Oh man, it’s really bad in there. I almost threw up. Good luck,” and then roll your eyes for emphasis. Your disgust will imply that you didn’t do it because people don’t usually get grossed out by their own smells. You would never want to overtly say, “It wasn’t me!” because no one will believe that. Keep in mind, they will only believe you if you didn’t make them wait their turn for more than 20 minutes. The best part is they will usually respond to the warning with immense gratitude. I don’t typically recommend lying, but if you’re one of those people that’s easily embarrassed, this might ease your social discomfort.

If you can’t find a private option and you’re stuck with a bathroom with multiple stalls, you’ll want to find the stall that is furthest from the entrance. It gives the illusion of privacy. If you are using a movie theater bathroom, then you’re in luck, because usually there are countless stalls, and so the furthest stall really does end up being pretty private.

If you are worried about people hearing you poo, you’ll want to use the shared bathroom to your advantage, and try to only let the poo hit the water at the same moment that someone turns on the faucet to wash their hands. Even better if the theater has installed those really loud hand dryers that makes your hand skin look like someone’s face when they’re sky diving.

If your poo is really stinky and it is wafting out of the stall and into the rest of the bathroom, you must poo as quickly as possible and promptly leave without making eye contact. You are not subjecting your poo to your loved ones. These are merely strangers whom you will never see again. You don’t owe them anything. The other option is to stay in the stall as long as possible until the poo smell cannot be traced back to your stall, and the people who were in the bathroom when the poo occurred have since moved on. If you’re lucky, you will have avoided a new wave of people, and walk out into an empty bathroom.

If you’re in a multiple stall bathroom and there is only one other person, timing is everything. If you think you can poo fast enough to leave the bathroom without coming face to face with that person, then you should do that. If you miscalculate, and you’re still poo’ing when they have finished, it is advisable to wait until they leave. Give yourself an extra minute at the sink so as not to accidentally have them recognize you outside the bathroom. They may not have seen your face, but they more than likely saw your feet peaking out from under the stall.

4. Providing a Healthy Poo’ing Environment for Guests/The Ultimate Pooping Room: Even though I do not advocate masking the smell of poop with a lit match or air freshener, it’s important to make guests feel secure while pooping in your home. I’ll even go as far as to let my guests know, upon their arrival, where the designated poop room is. Unfortunately, at the moment, we are living in a one bathroom home…but in the past, when I’ve lived in a home with two, I was always courteous enough to let people know where they could safely poo.

Here is a list of items you should have in your bathroom at all times:

Reading material

Scented Candle

Lighter

Matches

Air Freshener (preferably with a lavender scent)

Plunger

Toilet Bowl Scrubber

Extra Rolls of Toilet Paper

Moist Flushable Butt Wipes

Hand Soap

Clean Hand Towel

As you may have noticed, I have included matches and air freshener in the list, despite my belief that they do nothing to mask the smell of poop. The reason for this is I strongly believe a comfortable pooping experience is in the eye of the poo’er. In other words, the way in which we handle our shit smells has to do with what makes us feel comfortable. If someone believes that the match is the way to go, then I feel it is only fair to give that person that option. If I am going to provide the ultimate pooping room (which is my intention), then I need to anticipate everyone’s preference of poo smell remedies.

There is a delicate balance between comfortably pooping and being courteous of others when it comes to subjecting them to your poo smells. Hopefully, these rules will help people poop in harmony.

(If anyone has any other suggestions for rules that should be added, please let me know)!

This week was a little rough. I’m pretty sure it was worse for my husband. He really gets the short end when I’m feeling emotional and crabby…and by crabby I mean a raving bitch – aka PMSing, but it’s safer not to use that term. If I use that term about myself, then my loved ones will think it’s acceptable for them to use as well, and it’s just not. I repeat, NOT OKAY (by the way, I’m still PMSing, so don’t challenge me).

The thing that really put me in a foul mood though was the four hours I spent on Thursday night, doing an extremely shitty drawing. Nothing frustrates me more than making art and realizing it’s god awful. It was so bad that I still can’t look at it, and I certainly can’t post it. So instead, here’s a doodle I found, which I did a few years ago.

It’s probably more disturbing than my post about badly drawn babies. I’ve seen it make some people actually feel physically sick.

Anyway, so Thursday night, my husband got home from work really late, and he walked through the door just as I realized I had wasted my entire evening on this sucky drawing. So, I did what any woman in her not-so-right mind would do…I unleashed the beast…on my husband of course. Who else?!

When we finally got into bed, I told myself, “Tomorrow is a new day.” But when I awoke Friday morning, I still felt lousy. I knew what had to be done. I said to myself, or I guess to Liam (my one year old son), because he was sitting right there staring at me, “I need to get a goddamn cheeseburger.” Just the thought of getting a cheeseburger started to make me feel better. There’s something to be said for eating your feelings.

Liam and I ate at a restaurant in Culver City. I ordered our food and he stared at the couple sitting behind us, as if hanging on their every word. Our food arrived promptly, and I began the process of cutting half of everything on my plate into little bite-size pieces.

Liam was a joy! When he wasn’t shoving food in his mouth, he was waving at everyone who walked past our table. He sat in the high chair, as still as a saint, with the posture of a dancer. I couldn’t believe it. He has never made it through an entire meal at a restaurant without whining, climbing, or throwing food on the floor.

The burger was epic! It glistened with juices that ran down my chin. My eyes filled with tears of joy as I experienced the crisp crunch of the iceburg lettuce. The brioche bun was the yin and yang of sweet and salty. Someone had made that burger with love.

A beam of light peaked through the clouds from heaven, and shined down on us. Little angels burst from specs of dust and swirled all around our table. I mean, really. It was amazing.

Needless to say, the day really turned around. When we got home, I put Liam down for his nap. Then, I sat on the couch and embraced my food coma. I even left my muffin top untucked.

When it comes to fashion, I’ve never been one to wear anything outlandish – excluding the time in 5th grade when I used to wear crocheted vests and Troll earrings.

I like to feel comfortable in what I’m wearing. I just make sure my stomach isn’t hanging over my pants and that I don’t have four-boob (which is the unfortunate outcome of wearing a bra that is too small for your boobs). That pretty much sums up my fashion sense these days.

As a result, I don’t follow fashion trends, but I can’t help but notice the problems there are with some of the things I see famous people wearing. I know I’m not an authority on fashion, for the reasons I just mentioned, but if you’re a discerning, shit picking person (which obviously I am), it’s easy to spot these hideous fashion trends:

1. The Headband – The one that is worn over the hair, across the forehead, and after an hour of being worn, it makes the hair poof up around the crown of the head. Please don’t do this. If you are reading this and are presently wearing one of these headbands, you must immediately remove it. No one likes this look but you. I bet if you really searched your soul, you’d find that you don’t really like it either. Maybe you started wearing it when it was more socially acceptable (the first five minutes of when the trend started – maybe not even then), and now you feel naked without it. I promise you’ll be okay.

2. The Clown Makeup – This is a pretty simple thing to avoid. Heavy eyeshadow must only be applied if being worn with a nude lip, or at least a very pale color. Same rule applies if you want to wear dark lipstick. If you are wearing dark lipstick, you have to go easy on the eyeshadow. You can’t wear dark lipstick with heavy eyeshadow, unless, you wanna be a ho or in a Robert Palmer video.

4. The Useless Decorative Button – Unless you’re Michael Jackson, which you’re not for obviously reasons, you shouldn’t have these on any item of clothing. Only Barbie can wear decorative buttons, because if she wore real buttons, the button holes would be too small to actually be buttoned by a full sized human, or even a small child.

5. High-Waisted Pant with Midriff – Why is everyone doing this?! (JLo and Kim Kardashian) All I can think when I see this is, “why would you intentionally make yourself look like you have no torso?” Even on the most toned person, the midriff skin flap ends up hanging over the pant (the ‘s’ was left off intentionally). A high-waisted pant should only be used as a place to tuck-in your muffin top.

6. Platform Shoes – They’re ugly, even on trannies. Same goes for goths with trench coats. I might make an exception for extremely short people, because if you wore heels high enough to make you look tall, the front part of your foot would eventually go numb, and then probably break off. Nah, even you shorties. I think you should just embrace your shortness.

7. Camel Toe – I am reluctant to add this to the list of Hideous Fashion Trends because a severe camel toe can be a lot of fun, both for the presenter and for the viewer. Of course this depends on whether or not the camel toe was intentional. I think I just added it to the list because I wanted to draw a girl with camel toe. My only regret is that it’s not as severe as I had hoped.

I don’t want to be a hater. I really don’t. The thing is I have recently started watching shows like American Idol and The Bachelor, and I’d really prefer not to see anymore chicks with those headbands. It would make my viewing experience much more pleasurable. Also, my husband wouldn’t have to hear me bitch about it, although he agrees with me. That’s right! He willingly watches these shows! In his defense, they’re probably not his first choice, it’s just that I’m pretty bossy with the clicker, (to you younger folks out there, I’m referring to the remote control).

Every week, my husband and I look forward to a relaxing weekend. Then, when Saturday finally rolls around, we are reminded of the fact that we have a 13 month old boy, who is like a goddamn wind up toy – you put him down on the ground and he’s on the move until you pick him back up again.

This past weekend, we had big plans to get a good night’s sleep on Saturday, and go to the beach early on Sunday. My brother in-law was going to come as well. The boys were going to surf, while Liam and I relaxed on the beach. For the record, I don’t do the ocean.

I grew up in NY, on Long Island….In the Hamptons.

Yeah! That’s right! The Hamptons!

No, I did not grow up in a mansion on the ocean and no, I do not know the Kardashians or Sean Puffy Combs or whoever else is hanging out there these days.

Anyway, the Atlantic ocean is like a warm bath with gentle ripples in comparison to the Pacific. Here in LA, the ocean is fucking cold and full of seaweed, with a congregation of the biggest douchebags on the planet (not that the people on the Hamptons’ beaches are any better). LA has some serious douche-baggers, especially on Abbot Kinney in Venice. I thought they were bad in Hollywood, but Venice is truly the worst.

After living in LA for over 14 years, I don’t have much hope for humanity….but, I will never stop hoping, that when Liam grows up, he will stay away from surfing, rock climbing, sky diving, and anything else that requires his feet to leave the safety of solid ground. I also hope he never turns into a douchebag, but the chances of that are slim, since I intend to have a pretty strict no douchebag policy in our home.

Anyway, back to the weekend…

Here’s what really happened (written in the style of Bridget Jones’ clever short hand).

Saturday Night:

8:30pm – Too lazy to make a real dinner, throw some frozen potstickers into a pan, and make a simple salad so as not to feel malnourished/like a fat ass.

9pm – Sit down to eat with husband and pour a glass ofrosé, while watching Enlightened streaming on HBO GO.

4:16am – Have visions of being crushed by ceiling. Imagine running outside to the middle of street. Consider the fact that I would be wearing nothing but underpants (big ones). Resolve to start wearing pajamas.

4:25am – Somehow end up on Facebook, sifting through various mommy posts about EBF, SAHM, DD, DH, and FTM. Curse to self about mommy blog acronyms.

8:45am – Make husband stop off to get me a breakfast burrito because yogurt was too healthy/not filling.

9:00am – Finally arrive at the beach.

I had this idealistic vision of getting to the beach – with the sun shining and a cool breeze blowing off the ocean. I imagined lying back in my beach chair, while Liam played quietly with his toys, safely shielded from the sun in head to toe SPF 100 organic sunblock.

But, it turned to be an overcast day. I carried Liam, the diaper bag, burrito, and beach chair down by the life guard stand, to set up our crap. My husband and my brother-in-law stood by the car, in their towels, carefully not flashing anyone their junk while they put on their wetsuits.

After sweating profusely from carrying an entire human and a bunch of stuff to make the beach a pleasant/tolerable place, I set Liam on the beach blanket with his truck and plastic stacking cups.

I exhaled with relief, as I sat back in my beach chair with my burrito. I took a bite and dear god, if that wasn’t the best burrito I’d ever had. It was just egg, sausage, and hash browns…but it was perfect.

Before I could even swallow – Liam was crawling towards the water, across an accumulation of debris consisting of dead jellyfish, old seaweed, and cigarette butts. I had to pick him up and return him to his proper place on the blanket no less than 50 times.

Finally, I had the brilliant idea to share my burrito with him so he’d sit “near mommy, and let mommy relax.” Little did I know, as small as he is, he would eat most of my burrito – we’re talking one of those big thickburritos – the kind where when you’re watching the guy make it, you wonder how he will physically be able to roll it closed.

I know it’s terrible of me to want my baby to sit still, even though I know he is physically incapable of controlling his little body, and needs to roam free to explore.

Like right now…Liam is dying for me to be done writing this. Poor little guy needs to get out in the sun and be with other babies, so he doesn’t end up like Nell – babbling to himself in an abandoned house in the forest somewhere, because his mother didn’t get him out into the world to be properly socialized. On that note, I must be done writing for the day.

Remember when you were a kid and you used to have pretend phone conversations into a banana? Those were the good ol’ days! I’m actually kind of pissed I ever switched to a real phone. It got me thinking (which ultimately made me a little depressed), about how my baby, Liam, might never talk into a banana.

A Few Reasons Liam May Never Talk into a Banana:

1. Pretend phone conversations with fruit have been replaced by the imagination-killing glow of the cell phone screen. Anytime Liam gets his hands on my iphone, he becomes irritable and obsessive. It’s actually kind of creepy. I don’t know why, but obsessive babies that have pent up anger remind me of Chucky – minus the red hair, facial scars, bad language, and propensity for violence and murder.

2. We don’t really eat bananas in our house, especially if I buy them. In fact, there are presently 6 over-ripe bananas sitting in our forgotten fruit bowl. I’ve tried to be more Pinterest-y and use over-ripe bananas for homemade banana bread, but they turn black in the fridge and then a month later, I discover them and wonder why I go through so much trouble for a fruit I kind of loathe anyway. In theory, what’s not to love? They’re convenient, healthy, sweet, fun to draw, and phallic. But the truth is that they aren’t juicy! Period! By definition, a good fruit is supposed to be juicy. They are the opposite of juicy. They actually make me thirsty. That’s reason alone not to buy them.

3. Bananas are soon going to be too expensive to buy and then become extinct. Can you imagine paying a dollar per pound for bananas?! Gross! It’s old news, but according to this article, we’re looking at only three more years of bananas.

I have endured a banana on occasion, but I have strict rules for banana consumption.

The Conditions Under Which I Will Consume a Banana:

1. Slightly under-ripe (so it’s not too mushy), sliced over cereal, with a good amount of milk. It has to be in a somewhat healthy cereal, though. Bananas look ridiculous in something like Fruity Pebbles or Lucky Charms. If you eat it in those types of cereals, you’re wrong. Also, for the record, Lucky Charms is a terrible cereal and Fruity Pebbles really shouldn’t ever be eaten, unless it’s on top of some frozen yogurt…and not just any frozen yogurt – it has to be Yogurtland.

2. In a peanut butter sandwich…again, don’t forget how un-juicy a banana is. When you pair it with peanut butter, you will desperately need something to drink. You cannot wash it down with anything other than water or milk, unless you want to be disgusting.

3. Running late for an afternoon appointment, shaking from hunger, with no time to stop for food – not even at a drive thru McDonalds or anywhere else equally as shitty…this is one of the two occasions a banana may be consumed without other food.

4. While extremely pregnant, low blood sugar, in need of potassium, with a strange craving for a banana. This is occasion number two in which a banana may be consumed without other food.

When the banana industry meets its maker, I will not mourn their absence. However, I will continue to draw ladies with banana boobs. I may not find bananas tasty, but they certainly are funny.